Spokesman Yassir Ali announced the news in a statement broadcast on state television this evening.

Ynet News is also reporting that there has been a "major increase in armored vehicle patrol along the border as well as heavy guarding of the now closed tunnels, which were sealed with the deterioration of the situation between Gaza and Israel".

The ruling Freedom and Justice Party had earlier said the assassination of a top Hamas official by IDF forces was "crime that requires quick Arab and international action to stop these massacres against the Palestinian people besieged in the Gaza Strip."